


Rescue and Recovery

by jenna_thorn



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-11
Updated: 2012-06-11
Packaged: 2017-11-07 12:26:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/431177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> ...What about Barton?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“He knows what to say to the shrinks.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Hill, we all know what to say to the shrinks at this point.” Fury rubbed one hand over the top of his head.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rescue and Recovery

Rescue and Recovery

“As for the rest?” Fury asked.

“No major changes. You know where Romanov is and Banner and Stark are still holed up as their own science fair – two new patent filings: the first, a follow on to the directed energy optic lines from last week, the second, a chemical substrate for bio-nano development.”

“So nice to know their playdates are productive. What about Barton?”

“He knows what to say to the shrinks.”

“Hill, we all know what to say to the shrinks at this point.” Fury rubbed one hand over the top of his head. “I’m trying to think of options.”

“Romanov–“

“She’s done what she can, which is a hell of a lot more than anyone else managed to do, to be honest. Just … we’ve got to handle it.”

“Dammit, he’s Coulson’s ---“ she choked back the rest of the sentence. Fury stared at her, the initial flash of hurt fading into what she hoped like hell wasn’t pity. She straightened, took a breath. “I’ll deal with it.”

“What are you telling the shrinks, Maria?”

“Same thing Barton is. Whatever’ll get me out of their offices.”

“Get out of my face and do your job,” he said with no heat.

She didn’t bother saluting. “Yessir.”

\--::--

Her phone hummed with the alarm she’d put on Barton’s door and Maria sighed. Natasha glanced over. “Still bad?”

“Better? Maybe? Or not? I don’t know.”

“Don’t let Fury hear you say those words.”

“I’d know who told him,” Maria growled and Natasha smiled.

“Yeah yeah.” She waved the implied threat off with casual good humor and reached for her toast. “He is better, at least better than he was at first. Which, okay, was bad, but…”

“I wish Phil was here to deal with this.”

“Yeah, well, he’s not and we are.” Natasha’s voice was suddenly not so much cold as smooth.

Maria closed her lips against the apology that was her first thought. “Pass the juice?” she asked, and let the silence stretch between them.

Eventually, Natasha set her fork to the side and said to the table between them, “Clint chose to be a hero. Not the early training, that was skill and unfortunate proximity to a freakjob with a demented skill set and aspirations of destiny, but he … he wants to be a hero.”

“The psychology department is aware of that,” Maria said.

“But you’re the one running around trying to fix the problem. So what are you going to do?”

“What am I going to do, what is Fury going to do, or what is SHIELD going to do?”

“Yes,” Natasha said.

“Easiest first. The psych ward says he’s not a threat …”

“But…”

“But he’s avoiding any space with more than two people in it and is missing every meeting he can get away with. He’s even quit lurking in R&D. They won’t admit it, but it sounds like they miss him. Also, watch this.” She cued up the security footage on her phone, pushed play and spun it to face Natasha. She didn’t bother watching. She had already viewed it often enough that she knew when to look for the minuscule tightening at the corner of Natasha’s mouth, the flicker of one eye as the screen showed Barton in a hallway, pausing to run one hand along the unpainted repairs and recent welding, then turning on one heel and walking back the direction he’d come.

“He didn’t look up. New camera placement?” Natasha asked.

“I think he’s just tired of pretending it doesn’t get to him.”

“So SHIELD’s cleared him, but you know better. What’s Fury’s call?”

“He dropped it in my lap.”

Natasha smiled, unexpectedly girlish. “You should see the look on your face. So what are you going to do?”

“Set a meeting and discuss the issue with two people: the only person I know who already survived a mindfuck on this scale and the closest friend he’s got.”

“At one breakfast meeting. Why Agent Hill, that’s remarkably effective time management.”

“I thought so. More coffee?”

\---:::---

Maria entered the empty bay and stood well behind Barton. She couldn’t sneak up on him, but damned if she was going to give him an excuse to take a free shot if he wanted. If she could sneak up on him, if he was that messed up, she really didn’t want to know. “You’ve maxed your allowed hours for the week.”

“It’s Wednesday.”

And we don’t actually max range hours, she didn’t say. “My point. Go do something else.” He lowered the bow and she added, “No, not the gym. In fact, off base. Go off base. I’m telling you to leave.”

“Am I making you nervous?”

“You wish. Go … fly a kite, feed pigeons.”

“An official assignment? Will I be poisoning pigeons in the park?”

“No, but I am making this official. Stop reviewing the surveillance tape.”

He folded the bow back in on itself with a twitch of his wrist, grabbed the quiver, and left the rest of his gear behind, careful not to touch her as he stalked by. She rubbed the back of her neck. Yeah, she could have screwed that up more, but not by much. She slapped the retrieval system button with more force than necessary and watched as the padded target rolled toward her.

\--::--

He pulled the arrows she’d returned from his locker, examining each briefly. She stood at the edge of the long bench, crossed her arms, and said, “Sitwell volunteers with a group.”

“They need a sniper?”

“They need a physically intimidating man on call.”

“Bouncer.”

“Of sorts.”

“I’m not a babysitter, Hill.”

“Call it serving the community at large.”

“Is that an order?”

“You seem to forget, Agent, you’re on paid leave. Happy vacation.” He should have laughed. A month ago he would have laughed. Now he just gave her the blank dead eyed stare that he’d been wearing too often. “Oh, and Hawkeye?” He stopped but didn’t turn, instead tilting his head downward, waiting for her to finish. “Quit making life difficult for the accountants. If you’re going to mess with the checks, use your A/P Code so they know where the extra bereavement funding is coming from. I’m tired of dealing with their collective freakout when line items don’t match up.”

“The shrink said not to do it at all.”

“Bullshit. The shrink said it wouldn’t help. Does it?”

“Not enough.”

“That’s because you don’t value money. You’re paying in the wrong currency.”

“So what’s the right one?” His voice was still wrong, Maria thought. He should be angry, not resigned.

“Hell if I know.”

“I’ve got more backpay than blood.”

“We’re overpaying you, then.” She left the equipment room, left him to fondle his damn weaponry and roll in his guilt.

\--::--

Sitwell looked surprised when Clint slouched in. He tossed up his usual sloppy parody of a salute and Sitwell pulled his cell phone out of his jeans pocket and tapped at it for a moment.

“So was there a pool on my showing up?”

“Nope, knew you’d show. Bet was on whether you’d be armed.”

Clint flexed his arms. “I bring my own gun show.”

Sitwell didn’t glance up. “Get it out of your system now. For the rest of the day you are to remain silent and non-confrontational. The only thing you are allowed to do is provide witness statements and defend yourself.”

“They say the best defense is a good off –“

“Barton. Do not complicate this woman’s life any more than it already is. This is not an operation, he is not a target, and we are a display of protection only.”

“Stupid way to run a protection detail. What if he shows up?”

“We stand there and look intimidating.”

“What if he shows with friends?”

“We stand there and look intimidating.”

“What if the husband throws a punch?”

“You telling me you can’t take a punch? We stand with our thumbs up our asses and do as we’re told,” Sitwell said.

Clint rubbed at his eyes. “This is stupid.”

“It’s unfortunately necessary.”

“No, the standing around is stupid.”

“This is Yonkers. You can’t eliminate a civilian.”

“Can I send him to a fourth world shithole, call him general for five months, and _then_ shoot him?”

“Yeah, that’d work.”

\--::--

Isabelle of no-last-name greeted them with a cloth diaper in one hand and a drooling infant in the other. “Oh! Jules said she’d send, um, golly. Okay, I have the paperwork here, in, um, there.” She tossed the cloth over her shoulder, transferred the baby to the other arm, and pointed one toe at a side pocket of the diaper bag at her feet.

Sitwell knelt and paused with his hand on the bag. “Ma’am, is there anything I’m going to have to declare in this bag if I get the docs for you?”

“What? Oh! No, nothing like. No, just the um, the writ and the restraining order and…,” she paused and Clint glanced up.

“Slow your breathing, in two three, out two three. You’ve got this. You’re in charge,” he said.

She blew out a shuddering sigh and closed her eyes. “Right. It’s just. …” She flapped her free hand while Sitwell pulled a sheaf of legal documents, neatly folded, from the bag. “You know.”

Clint smiled and it felt like a smile, not a baring of teeth, for the first time in weeks. “Actually, not so much. First time.” He glanced up and Sitwell was looking at him with the same blank face that Hill and the shrinks used. He felt the smile slip away.

“You and me both, buddy. Dizzy Izzy.” She stuck out her hand. Clint shook it and hoped that the wetness there wasn’t baby related.

They piled into a rented SUV, Julia and the baby waving goodbye as they pulled out of the shelter’s tree lined drive and rode in silence to a near identical neighborhood. By force of habit, he surveyed the street, noting open windows, closed windows, sightlines. A hundred places for a threat to come and all Izzy probably saw was her home that wasn’t a home with an older woman standing to meet them.

“Ara,” Izzy said, as she approached. Sitwell stood with his back to the vehicle door and nodded at Clint and he exited the SVU, his hands empty. As he walked up, still scanning rooflines, the older woman shook a keyring.

“He changed the locks when he threw your lazy butt out.”

“That’s fine. Let us in, we’ll get what the judge decided was fair, and I’ll be gone.”

“My son’s too good for you, you bitch.” She looked up at Clint and sniffed. “She’ll turn on you, too, boy. Let your momma worry.”

“Bye Ara!” Izzy called cheerfully, following it with a muttered, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

“Breathe,” Clint said. “In, two three…”

Izzy blew her badly cut bangs out of her eyes. “You sure you haven’t done this before?”

“Every mother-in-law is terrifying at some point.”

“Yeah, I guess. C’mon. I’ll get a suitcase, if you’ll start in the kids’ room. Just grab what’ll fit. I got Benji’s blankie when we walked, so the stuffies on the bed would be nice, but don’t forget his shoes. Don’t bother with clothes for Emmie; the shelter had a bunch of stuff for babies.”

“People want to help,” Clint said. The words hung in the air between them, and for a moment, Clint wondered if it echoed to her, too.

“Yeah, I guess I should replace them or something, right? Pay it forward and all.” She dropped a hard sided suitcase at his feet. “Here, just tump in what’ll fit.”

He had the phrase ‘that’s not what I meant’ on his lips when she walked out of the room, saying,”I checked the stuff in the washer and it’s all sour and I’m not even gonna try. Let him deal with it.”

He and Sitwell switched places after the suitcases went into the back of the SUV. He stood at the door and listened as Izzy slammed cabinets. “I don’t even want it, it’s just stuff, why’d he break it, I don’t care.”

Her voice dropped too low for him to hear, but he could make out Sitwell, always calm, saying, “It’s on the list. You can give it away later, if you want, let’s just do what we’re here for.”

They both helped, where they could, mostly lifting crap to get more useless crap from under or behind it or reaching down quilts with fraying edges from closet shelves. She pulled a plastic bag of white satin peppered with plastic beads from a closet, then left it on the empty pizza box in the living room. Clint wondered if it was on the list, then decided that some things were better left behind. Her choice.

Sitwell sent Clint outside, though, to stand by the SUV with the Writ of Entry openly visible when the husband showed up. He wore a Wild Turkey tee but the bottle in his hand was tequila. He stood at the edge of the property line, one foot on the sidewalk, the other on the grass, or paced. He sat at the sidewalk, catcalling Izzy as she handed hastily packed boxes to Sitwell.

“You know that brat ain’t mine,” he yelled, mostly to the few neighbors who hadn’t already wandered away.

“You sonova … ” came from inside the house and Izzy stepped out of the door.

“Izzy!” Sitwell called, his voice sharp but not angry. ”Do not engage.”

She growled “fucking son of a bitch” under her breath as she stomped back into the house.

The guy turned to where Clint leaned against the driver’s door of the SUV. “Hey you, pretty boy.”

“Oh, now I know he’s not talking to me. Must be you, Sitwell,” he shouted up the sidewalk.

“So what do you get out of this?”

“Do not engage,” Sitwell called across the scanty yard.

“She paying you? Cause that’s my goddamn money, you asshole.”

“Do not engage,” Sitwell repeated.

“You fucking my wife? Is her skinny ass worth spending your Saturday afternoon staring at me?”

“Do. Not. Engage.”

“Why you keep looking at him? He your boss? He tell you what to do?”

“Yeah, in bed,” Clint muttered.

“Dammit Barton, what part of ‘do not engage’ was not clear?”

He made a show of the gesture of innocence, keeping the husband at the edge of his line of sight, as he walked up the short sidewalk. “No no, Sitwell, not fiancé, just boyfriend. I’m going to have to insist you get down on one knee if you want to get engaged. Call me old fashioned.” He turned to face the street, crossing his arms, a bookmark to Sitwell on the other side of the door.

The sudden silence from the edge of the yard ended in a mostly incomprehensible diatribe at high volume and higher pitch. Sitwell, at his shoulder, glared straight forward at the street, a stony glare on his face. “You know my wife works with these people.”

“Ah young grasshopper,” Clint said with a grin, “you do not fight the wind, you deflect and redirect the wind. Or the hot air in this case.” The guy was no more creative now, but he was stomping on the sidewalk and yelling about faggots rather than whores, so Sitwell shrugged.

“Wax on, wax off, I guess.”

Izzy tapped Sitwell on the shoulder. “I’ve got it. I’ve marked the list, like Jules said and …”

Clint caught the bottle in his left hand, and Sitwell’s right was a quarter second behind. It hit his palm with a satisfying solidity as Izzy gasped. The guy, the husband, the soon to be ex-husband, the _civilian_ , Clint reminded himself, stood at the very edge of the sidewalk, gaping. Clint flipped the bottle to hold it by the neck, seeing the dregs of the tequila fall to spatter on the concrete stoop, weighing the glass, noting the sun, the distance, the barest whisper of a breeze. Sitwell kept his damn hands to himself and held his tongue.

“Then we’re good to walk to the car?” Clint asked. At Sitwell’s nod, they stepped off the stoop. Izzy, coached or smart, stayed carefully between them, keeping her eyes down, non-confrontational. Sitwell beeped the SUV and Clint opened the door for Izzy, pulling the seatbelt to her hand before closing the door. He rolled the tequila bottle behind the tires as he opened the back door and slid in. It rolled to a rest against the curb as they drove away.

\---:::---

Clint raised his cell. “Right now? Currently lurking in the mad scientist's evil lair. No, Steve’s got it set for five. Yeah, see you then.” He slid the phone into his pocket and leaned back out of the way of Stark’s hologram display.

“You know,” Tony grumbled, “That doesn’t get any funnier with repetition.”

“Maybe not from your side.”

Tony leaned on the counter, tapping the edge of whatever tool he was holding. Might have been a sonic screwdriver, might have been a movie prop from a made-for-SyFy movie. “Just lay off around Bruce. He doesn’t know you’re joking.”

“So,” Clint said, conversationally, “What’s your death toll, Stark?”

Stark froze then slowly turned to look Clint in the eye. “Totalled? Higher than his. Higher than yours. Shut the fuck up and get the hell out of my way.”

“Me too, man, me too.” He kept his distance but held Tony’s gaze. Eventually Tony shook his head and went back to poking at the light display in front of him. Clint said, “Your coffee’s cold. You want a soda?”

“Fridge under there.”

Clint pulled out a Monster. “These things are crap cut with caffeine under a skate-punk logo. They’re gonna kill you.” Tony paused, his hand outstretched for the can, struck momentarily speechless. Clint stifled the first giggle, but couldn’t stop the second. The third was a little shrill, so he swallowed the fourth. ”Yeah, let’s forget I said that.”

“Oh hell no, Barton. I’m using it forever and ever. Agent Barton says the risk isn’t from terrorists or aliens or the knives in my chest, but it’s the fucking sodas that are going to kill me. DUM-E, etch it on something.”

“My tombstone, maybe.”

“No, I want you to see it. Maybe your bathroom mirror.”

“Yeah, I don’t …” He stopped himself, too honest, but too late. Tony ignored the slip so completely there wasn’t a chance in hell he hadn’t caught it.

“Barton – “ Tony called, but Clint raised a hand and pretended not to hear him as the glass door slid shut behind him.

\---:::---

Maria sent him on a cakewalk, high coverage for a British team in a country neither the UK nor US military had any right to be in. It all went to hell, of course, because nothing easy ever is, and she sat in Birmingham in a room with no windows listening as someone named Smitty called out locations and Barton responded with Yes or No. They lost two men of a team of twenty five and the man in charge asked what she wanted for Barton’s permanent reassignment. She told him the Falkland Islands and he laughed.

Two days later, she pulled a single page of his report, specific praise for her loaned man and His Lordship’s understanding that the unnamed sniper had been a deciding factor not only of the success of the mission but also of the team’s survival. She emailed the page to Barton. He replied with an attachment, uselessly named scan.jpg. She opened the attachment and the list of dead from Loki’s attack on the helicarrier hit her like a blow under the ribs.

She thought about finding him, just to punch him in the face.

Instead, she went to the range and emptied magazine after magazine into targets, heart and eyes, again and again, until her fingertips vibrated and her eyes burned. She dropped her weapon to the small shelf and hit the button to reel in the paper and realized that the face she’d been imagining in front of her was now behind her. She pulled the hearing protection free.

“I wanted to apologize,” he said, quickly. She waited for more. The other agents backed away, giving him space as he left. She gathered her equipment and followed, aware that they circled just as widely around her.

\---:::---

Clint stood on carefully maintained grass, yellow tulips in his hand, and found an appropriate gravesite to stand over, a woman, three years dead at twenty one. He stared at a stranger’s headstone and watched at the edge of his vision as they buried Garcia, who wasn’t a stranger, who died of a titanium blade to the throat a mile over New York, who took his coffee black and had a dog because he bitched about walking it when it snowed.

Clint left the tulips on a stranger’s grave and wondered who was taking care of the damn dog.

\---:::---

“What’s up, Doc?’

“That’s going to be your standard greeting for me for the entire duration of our working together, isn’t it?”

“For you, yeah. For your other half, it’s more like ‘Oh crap! What’s happened?’ so, take your choice.”

“I can deal with Bugs Bunny.”

“That’s actually why I dropped by. Tony said I was pissing you off with the mad scientist thing, so ..” he stopped as Banner snickered. “Okay, what?”

“It bothers Tony. I’ve been working on my supervillian laugh.” Bruce grinned. To his own surprise, so did Clint.

“All right, let's hear it.”

Bruce did, a drawn out, throaty _bwahahaha_ with a wicked chuckle at the end.

Clint clapped. “Very nice. Very. I might even admit to being a little turned on. Based off Price?”

“Yeah, I mean, Lee, he owns his. Price is more universal.”

“I approve. Definitely break it out for Tony, but wait until I can get Steve to sit through a Hammer marathon. I hate the lost puppy look when he’s knows he’s missing something, but isn’t sure what. But we need to work on setting.” He gestured loosely around the lab. “This is way too sterile. You need spiderwebs and beakers of bubbling Koolaid and crap..”

“I’ve got an oscilloscope around here somewhere, but it’s digital.”

“Stark’s not much one for antiques.”

“It’s a nice lab.”

“So, how long you staying?”

“Best possible, until I find a cure. Worst possible? Until I cause enough collateral damage that he has to throw me out.”

“His baseline is about here,” Clint said and waved one hand at his eyebrows. “Potts, on the other hand, has to balance the checkbook.”

“And Fury.”

“Fury’s tolerance for collateral damage is way too fucking high.” He tried to make it friendly, but even to his own ears, his voice was flat. He couldn’t take the words back, so he switched tactics. “But hey, I’ve got a plan for Potts. How are you with footrubs? You know the place I sent you for the sticks and twigs?”

“Herbal apothecaries are not sticks and …”

“Banner, I had, in my head and without resorting to the Yellow Pages, a local place for you to find rare plants on request. Think about it. My point,” he raised one hand to forestall further admonishment, “is they make a peppermint based lotion. For feet. It’s gotten me laid, so I’m thinking, applied early and often, it’ll keep your roof. Well, help. At some point, he’s going to damage her shoe closet and then all bets are off.”

Bruce nodded, thoughtful and approving. “And to think, I’ve been signing over patent filings.”

“Well, okay, maybe she’s more into that, but getting a little hands on can’t hurt.”

“So long as it’s the little beige hands, yeah?” Bruce said.

“Ooo, now see, I wasn’t going to go there, sensitive type that I am.” Clint grinned and figured they were good.

\--::--

Fury paced behind her and Hill tried not to let it bother her, or at least not to let the irritation show.

“Good, though. He’s settling in.” He pushed away Rogers’ credit card statement. “What about Barton?”

She slid her thumb across the screen to unlock her phone. There an app for that, even if the _that_ in question is stalking your employees, she thought and tapped open the summary. “He’s quit prowling the halls in third shift as much, he’s in the mess regularly, and that movie?” She tapped the printout of Rogers’ credit card purchases. “Barton paid for lunch around the corner that day.”

“Thought the price seemed high for a matinee. What changed?”

“Time? Staring at the footage got old? Romanov kicked him in the head again?” That earned her a sharp glance and she bit her lip. “You know Rogers volunteers at the food bank?” She waited for him to nod. “Barton went with him. Twice. Did a couple of other community service …things, though the food bank’s the only one he repeated. Maybe it makes a difference.”

Fury chuckled. “Because saving the goddamn world from aliens isn’t good enough to let him sleep at night, but spending a day at the SPCA is.”

“Never underestimate the power of puppy breath, sir,” she said and it took everything she had, but she said it with a straight face.

“We’ll let Stark patent it. What’s he up to?”

“We pulled and classified the semi-conductor improvements. He’s made jumps in power output that don’t need to be made commercial.”

“He’s not fighting it?”

“I talked to Potts. Plus we let him run with the biological substrate. Right now it’s experimental, but eventually, it’ll revolutionize injury recovery.”

“Oh goody,” he said sarcastically, but she knew better.


End file.
